Pa. court punts on voter ID law

Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court on Tuesday returned the case over the state’s strict voter ID law to a lower court, asking it to rule on whether the state can provide photo IDs to all eligible voters by Election Day.

If the Commonwealth Court cannot prove that no voters will be disenfranchised, the decision said, that court must place a preliminary injunction on the law until after the election. The lower court must file its decision by Oct. 2.

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“Overall, we are confronted with an ambitious effort on the part of the General Assembly to bring the new identification procedure into effect within a relatively short timeframe and an implementation process which has by no means been seamless in light of the serious operational constraints faced by the executive branch,” the court’s decision says. “Given this state of affairs, we are not satisfied with a mere predictive judgment based primarily on the assurances of government officials, even though we have no doubt they are proceeding in good faith.”

Much of the oral arguments in the case, which took place last Thursday in Philadelphia, focused on the short timeframe for implementing the law in November.

A study from the state’s Department of Transportation this summer found that approximately 9 percent of the state’s registered voters — including 18 percent in Philadelphia County, a Democratic stronghold — did not have the appropriate ID to vote under the new law.

Pennsylvania’s new requirements, signed into law in March after being passed by the GOP-run legislature, are among the strictest in the country. Under the law, voters must show a valid state or federal photo ID, or a handful of other acceptable IDs like valid student ID cards. If voters do not have the correct ID, they can cast a provisional ballot but must take a valid ID to their local elections office within six days of the election.

The law had come under fire from Democrats and voting-rights groups, which argued that it would disproportionately affect the younger voters, low-income voters and minorities that traditionally back Democrats in Pennsylvania politics. A coalition of groups challenged the law in Commonwealth Court, but a judge ruled last month in the law’s favor. Those groups appealed to the state Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments last week and issued its decision today.

Voting-rights groups lauded the decision as a step in the right direction.

“This is a strong statement in support of protection of the right to vote,” said Penda Hair, co-director of the Advancement Project, a group that lobbied against the law during the case. “It’s an interim ruling so they did not discuss the law in great detail, but the conclusion is very favorable for voters.”